This guide from Hospitality Financial and Technology Professionals (HFTP(R)) covers safeguards that can be implemented in hospitality businesses today, tips on how to continuously improve security and data regulation compliance.

HFTP GDPR Guidelines: Privacy Policies for Hotels

This document offers points to consider in the development of a hotel’s privacy policy. In view of the multiple organisational and legal structures under which hotels operate, as well as the complexity of the third party landscape that may be part of the complete guest experience, this document serves as a guideline only.

HFTP GDPR Guidelines: Hospitality Guest Registration Cards

This document offers recommendations for guest information collection on the guest registration card along with consent for use. It can be used as a guideline for loyalty cards, health data, export of data outside of the EU, privacy policies and direct marketing.

Most conversations that involve digital marketing and the efforts of hotels and online travel agencies to gain exposure
usually revolve around advertising.
But that's only half the story, with search engine optimization still playing a significant role when it comes to how much
visibility (or not) a brand can get from the "ten blue links" that still populate the Search Engine Results Pages (SERPS) on
Google.
A common complaint from hotels is that they can't compete with keyword buying against the likes of Expedia Group and
Booking Holdings (between them spent upwards of $10 billion during 2017) but research has shown just how dominant the
same intermediaries are in organic search, too.

Hotel rooms without windows – either because they are interior rooms or they are located under ground level – are not uncommon in some parts of the world, particularly in crowded cities where available land is limited.

Ctrip, China’s largest online travel agency, posted strong financial results for the first quarter of 2018.
Net revenue increased 11% compared to the same period a year earlier, to $1.1 billion.
The Shanghai-based company also reported strong earnings of $170 million in the first three months of 2018, 19 times more than the first quarter of 2017.

Life isn’t fair. So your mother told you when you were growing up, and the older you get, the more you realize her sage words are all too true. But you also realize the profound importance of fighting back against injustices.
Competition is what makes business exciting - everyone is always jockeying to be the first, the biggest, the brightest. But when the gloves come off and the punches fly, you realize that businesses don’t always play fairly.

Airbnb has joined the ranks of brands in the industry that can generally fill a room whenever one of their executive comes along to speak.
It's not at the level, such as that of Google, perhaps, where if it sneezes then the rest of the industry fears it will catch a cold.
But the company is participating in enough areas of the industry (private accommodation, hotel distribution, and tours and activities) that it commands a lot of the attention from those curious about where it is heading.
Jeroen Merchiers, managing director for EMEA (following the departure of his predecessor to Booking.com), participated at Phocuswright Europe this week, discussing a range of issues with Douglas Quinby.
Watch the full interview here:

New research from Expedia Media Solutions shows that bleisure travel is thriving, with more than 60% of business trips in the past year including a leisure portion.
The research - unveiled at the Phocuswright Europe conference in Amsterdam this week - examines the behaviors of bleisure travelers from America, the United Kingdom, China, Germany and India, who across the board take more than six business trips per year.

Airbnb and other “shared economy” businesses have raised the bar for travel providers who wish to deliver personalized, truly local experiences for guests.
For hotels, the new environment means a rethink of a hotel’s relationship with their guests - and in many ways, a complete redo of the foundations of the guest experience.

Secret Escapes is the runaway success story from the plethora of travel brands that emerged at the turn of the decade with the idea of online discounted hotel sales.
Very few of the startups that came on the scene survived that period, dogged by the heavy competition and difficulties with getting customers to sign up for their offers.

Maud Bailly will take part in a Keynote/Interview at Phocuswright Europe.
Here she outlines the need for "responsible personalization," what the role of a CDO entails and AccorHotels' plans for the future.

It was always going to be mildly controversial when the European Technology and Travel Services Association (ETTSA) released its report last week into direct hotel bookings.
Just a reminder: ETTSA is an organization "representing and promoting the interests of global distribution systems (GDSs) and travel distributors (read: OTAs), towards the industry, policy-makers, opinion formers, consumer groups and all other relevant European stakeholders".